Kim R. Holmes is an author and a former American diplomat and Assistant Secretary of State. A Distinguished Fellow at Heritage Foundation, he speaks and writes on a variety of issues facing the United States. Between 1992 and 2012, he served twice as the foundation’s Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies and Director of its Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.[1] From 2002 to 2005, he served as the United States Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.[2]

Holmes' published works include Rebound: Getting America Back to Great (2013) and Liberty's Best Hope: American Leadership in the 21st Century (2008). He is a founding editor of the annual Heritage/Wall Street JournalIndex of Economic Freedom, in its 20th edition in 2015.

In 2012, Kim Holmes became a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, focusing on foreign policy and applying history to the formulation of public policy.[3] He had returned to the Heritage Foundation in 2005 to serve as Vice President of Foreign Policy and lead its team of over 40 experts in a broad portfolio covering foreign affairs and national security. Having just served at the State Department, Holmes rapidly expanded the foundation’s engagement in international affairs. He was instrumental, e.g., in establishing its Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom – the only such center in the world carrying Lady Thatcher's name.[4]

In 2001, Holmes accepted a presidential nomination to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under Secretary of State Colin Powell, a position he held until mid-2005. He was responsible for U.S. engagement at the United Nations and 46 other international organizations, directing over 400 U.S. diplomats and civil servants at the State Department headquarters in Washington and at U.S. missions in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Montreal and Nairobi. Key U.S. multilateral efforts included developing stronger mechanisms for countering terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; combating human rights abuses such as genocide in Sudan; and reentering UNESCO. Major U.N. Security Council resolutions secured during his tenure dealt with the U.N.'s involvement in Iraq and Sudan and the adoption of the first-ever resolution (United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540) on nonproliferation, which recognized the importance of global partnerships such as the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative. Holmes also helped to forge the first democracy caucus at the U.N. and to establish the United Nations Democracy Fund. He testified before Congress not only on the budget for engagement with international organizations but also on such hot topics as Castro’s crackdown on human rights activist in Cuba[5] and U.N. peacekeeping abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[6]

From 1992 to 2001, Holmes served as the Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Holmes had joined Heritage in 1985 as its defense policy analyst focusing on strategic defenses, the U.S. defense budget, military reform and weapons systems. He was then promoted to as Senior Policy Analyst for National Security Affairs specializing in arms control, NATO, and East-West strategic relations, and subsequently to be Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies before being named Vice President for the first time in 1992.

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Holmes spearheaded a task force of Heritage and other experts to produce the groundbreaking homeland security report, "Defending the American Homeland.".[7] Many of its recommendations were adopted by the U.S. government. He also launched the foundation’s widely respected homeland security program and its program on international trade, and expanded its missile defense program. In September 2000, he testified before Congress on national missile defense.[8] In 1995, he helped lay the intellectual groundwork for renewing the U.S. commitment to missile defense and ending self-imposed restrictions under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty[9][10] with the Soviet Union.

Prior to joining Heritage in 1985, Holmes was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a research institute associated with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was a research fellow at the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany, while completing his dissertation on the history of National Socialism in Bavaria between World War I and II.[11] He also taught European security and history as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.

Holmes publishes a bi-weekly column on current affairs in the Washington Times.[12]

He is a founding editor of the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal's annual Index of Economic Freedom.[13] He served as its co-editor from 1995 through 2002 and from 2006 through 2014. The Index’s trade policy scores have been used by the U.S. government to determine country eligibility for Millennium Challenge Account funds. Its findings have been used in textbooks in economics; by international organizations such as the World Bank[14] and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development[15] in their databases; by other indexes such as the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index and the Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index;[16] and by several Federal Reserve Banks in their educational outreach programs. Business and risk management firms also use the Index to assess foreign investment climates.[17]

Holmes has edited or co-edited a number of foreign policy books, including Restoring American Leadership: A U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy Blueprint; Mandate for Leadership, a quadrennial guide for Washington policymakers; Between Diplomacy and Deterrence: Strategies for U.S. Relations with China; Reshaping Europe: Strategies for Post-Cold War Europe; and Strategic Defenses for the 1990s and Beyond. Two of his recent books examine U.S. foreign policy and America's leadership role in world affairs: Liberty's Best Hope, published in 2008, and Rebound: Getting America Back to Great, published in 2013.

Holmes has published scholarly articles in such journals as Foreign Affairs, National Interest, Journal Aspenia (Italy), the African Executive, Harvard University's International Security and Columbia University's Journal of International Affairs. His shorter foreign policy and current affairs pieces appear regularly on websites such as Foreign Policy and Public Discourse.

Holmes served on presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team in 2012.[18]

Holmes is married, has two grown children, and lives in Oakton, Virginia.

Holmes' numerous research papers, journal articles, testimony, op-eds, and blogs are available online at www.heritage.org. Additional works include his writings, edited volumes, and contributions to the following: